Girl killed, 5 injured as car plows into restaurant near Paris
Driver arrested after vehicle hits pizza parlor; official says act appears to be deliberate, but not terrorism
French police said an 8-year-old girl was killed and at least five people were injured when a driver slammed his car into the sidewalk cafe of a pizza restaurant in a small town east of Paris.
An official with the national gendarme service said the driver was arrested soon after the incident Monday night, in the town of Sept-Sorts.
French officials said the driver who steered into patrons of a pizza restaurant east of Paris clearly acted intentionally, but they have no reason so far to suspect a terrorist motive.
A judicial official said Monday night that the Paris prosecutor’s office, which oversees French terrorism investigations, was not involved in the case because there was no proof of terrorism at this stage. A security official said there is no evidence of a political or Islamic extremist motive.
But both officials say authorities view the driver’s actions as intentional. They were not authorized to be publicly named.
An 8-year-old girl and at least five others were injured in the incident in Sept-Sorts, a town about 65 kilometers (40 miles) east of Paris.
An Algerian man drove his car into a group of French soldiers last week, and a truck attack in the French city of Nice left 86 people dead a little more than a year ago. Several other countries have seen cars used as weapons in recent years.